Swept Away Garden Verandah Suites

My fiance' and I are headed to CSA on Friday, April 16th and are staying in one of the Garden Verandah Suites~ Just wondering if anyone can let us know how these rooms rate?? I think all the rooms look fabulous but does one rate higher than the other with anyone? We are so excited about visiting Jamaica! It will be a first for both of us. Any suggestions for us? The "can't leave without doings", etc =)

The Verandah Suites are all the same... only their location, designated in their category name, distinguish them; the only other difference within a building would be if the room is on a corner (additional windows) or interior... there are four suites to a floor.

Here's my two cents worth of advice. We originally booked a Garden Verandah Suite (GVS) for our trip back in 08 but were upgraded to an Ocean Verandah Suite (OVS) when they didn't have a room for us the first night. The first night we spent in a Garden Suite (GS) which didn't have a TV or mini bar and also didn't have a solid wall to the ceiling separating the bathroom from the bedroom. The GVS & OVS rooms are the same but the GVS rooms are closest to the road. You may hear some road noise once in a while but as long as you keep the small window in the bathroom and the door closed I doubt if it will bother you in the least. If you're a hangout in the room and eat the room service breakfast on your verandah kind of people then you chose the wrong room. The Atrium or the Beachfront rooms would have been better for that. The view, especially from the second floor, will most likely be of the grounds which are beautiful. First and third floor rooms may give you a partial view of the ocean. The first floor room will also allow you to walk right off your verandah towards the beach. These rooms will be easy to find along the winding paths from the street side which is a good thing. Final opinion is that if you don't hang out in the room for extended periods of time then you made an awesome choice. If you want to hang out in the room then you should have chosen an Atrium or Beachfront room.
Oh and if you want to dry your rinsed out bathing suits we hung ours over the shower curtain rail with the A/C on overnight. It's much better than trying to dry them out on your verandah in the humid air.
Enjoy your time in Paradise!

My husband and I have stayed in a Ocean Verandah suite, Great House Verandah Suite, and a Garden Verandah suite before. We preferred the Garden Verandah suite, our suite was very private and overlooked a beautiful pond/water feature type area. We even had a small ocean view from our verandah as well, which was an added bonus. Personally though all the rooms at CSA are perfect in my opinion and it is the perfect place for an amazing honeymoon. You are going to have a blast!!!

Thank you so much for your responses. I am assuming we can't request a room type until we arrive on the property? We went through an agency to book everything so am not even sure what they suggested other than the room type!! Thanks again

I'm not sure about the GVS because we have just stayed in the OVS, but we are staying in the GVS's this fall. I'm sure it will be perfect. Ask for a third floor corner room towards the middle of the resort.

As far as must dos.....make sure you go to the Martini Bar, take a night time stroll, walk the beach in either direction, go snorkeling, and make sure to check out the sports complex across the street.

steveg52-
I read above that Steveg52 booked a GVVS and had to spend his first night in one of the rooms that had less amenities than he had booked. We have booked a GVVS for a very short stay in the near future (just three nights to cap off a longer stay at another resort). If we were there for a week it would likely not phase me to spend a night in a lesser room, but with so few nights I would not be happy to not get the room I booked and paid for. I am told that this is a rare thing (not getting the room you booked) but obviously it does happen (not just at CSA, but any resort). Would it help in any way to call ahead to remind those in charge of room assignments when we are arriving and what level of room we booked so that they can try to be sure we get what we paid for? In other words, at CSA is there anything we can do to help keep this from happening during our very short stay because we would hate to A) Not get the room I paid for and B) Then to need to spend any of our time moving to a different room when our room did become available.
Thanks for any tips on this!
Roy
20x to Jamaica
1st time to CSA (since it was just SA)

Rhallva my advice is not to sweat the small stuff. I doubt if there's anything you can do before you arrive at CSA. The resort is so beautiful and the lowest level room, Garden Suite, would have been fine if we had to spend the whole vacation there because we were hardly ever in the room. We arrived at the resort on Saturday when it was booked solid. If you're arriving in the middle of the week you'll most likely have the room that you booked waiting for you. Saturday seems to be their busiest day due to all the comings and goings of guests. We also got there around dinner time so room availability was even more challanged. The manager did explain how sorry he was for the inconvience and gave us a ROOM UPGRADE for the rest of the stay and resort credit too, I think it was $150. My wife smiled and immediately arranged for a massage...lol. We spent the remaining $50 in the gift shop. That took care of any issues my wife might have had. If you have to change rooms it's done pretty seamlessly. In the morning we left the room with a beach bag full of what we might need on the beach and had breakfast. Around lunch time we went back to the lobby and found out our bags had already been moved. We got new keys and were escorted to the new room. It was a simple process, so like I said, don't sweat the small stuff. It's funny, now that I think of it our room wasn't ready for us at CTI when we checked in there back in 2003. We were given a key to another room so we could change into our swim suits. We went back to the lobby before dinner to get our actual room assignment. Neither event put a damper on our stay at either of the resorts. If you have any other questions you'd like to ask just e-mail me and I'd be glad to help if I can. Enjoy your time in Paradise, aka CSA!
Steve

Can you explain more about the third floor corner room?

Can you please explain more about the third floor corner room towards the middle of the resort?

Originally Posted by Margi

I'm not sure about the GVS because we have just stayed in the OVS, but we are staying in the GVS's this fall. I'm sure it will be perfect. Ask for a third floor corner room towards the middle of the resort.

As far as must dos.....make sure you go to the Martini Bar, take a night time stroll, walk the beach in either direction, go snorkeling, and make sure to check out the sports complex across the street.

Since its a corner room, there are windows on the end so more light in the room. There are wooden slats you can close for privacy. If you get a suite more in the middle, its just may mean a little less walking as restaurants and shops are on both ends of the resort. Enjoy!

As softtail19 said, the corner rooms have windows on the side and the verandah has the front and side open. If you are towards the middle of the resort you are right in the middle of everything, so nothing is far away. Also, on the third floor you have more privacy and possibly a better view. We like to hang out on our verandah and my husband naps out there too. It might be more difficult to do that if we were on a first floor with people walking by. A lot of people don't like the steps, but since I'm eating and drinking so much all week, I like the extra exercise. You will love CSA. Let me know if you have any other questions.